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Friday, July 26, 2013

HUMANAE VITAE AFTER 45 YEARS (Part 3: The Vindication of Humanae Vitae)

Within
Humanae Vitae Pope Paul VI included a
dire warning about the “dire consequences of artificial birth control”. He
listed four specific consequences: conjugal infidelity and a general lowering
of morality, loss of respect for women, possibility of governmental coercion,
and the temptation for man to exercise illicit dominion over his body. To quote
Mary Eberstadt from her book Adam and Eve
after the Pill:

“Four decades later, not
only have the document’s signature predictions been ratified in empirical
force, but they have been ratified as few predictions ever are: in ways its
authors could not possibly have foreseen, including by information that did not
exist when the document was written, by scholars and others with no interest
whatever in its teaching, and indeed even inadvertently, and in more ways than
one, by many proud public adversaries of the Church.”

Conjugal Infidelity
& Lowering of Morals

Paul
VI foresaw the negative impact that contraception would have on marriages. By
effectively removing the procreative aspect the essential nature of marriage changed.
No longer was it fundamentally oriented towards the raising of children, but
rather it became focused on the emotional relationship of husband and wife.
Since Margaret Sanger’s contraception crusade in the 1920’s divorce rates have
risen sharply while marriage rates in the age of the Pill have dropped. Just
this week a
study from Bowling Green University revealed that the marriage rate in the
US has reached a record low with only 31 marriages for every 1,000 women.

The
Pew Research Institute published
a study detailing the changing face of families in the United States from
1960 to 2010. They found that the number of adults who had never been married
had nearly doubled while those who have been divorced or separated increased
three fold. The Pew report notes, “With the arrival of the birth control pill
in the early 1960s, American women gained a new measure of control over their
reproductive lives. Public attitudes about sex outside of marriage have changed
dramatically since that time.” Citing a Gallup poll they noted that in 1969 68%
of the public believed premarital sex was wrong; by 2009 only 32% held that position.
I recommend taking the time to look at the Pew study, to see the empirical
evidence of the moral decline of our society. Increased divorce rates, fewer
marriages, greater numbers of children being raised in broken homes, all of
these factors place a disproportionate burden upon women and children
especially.

Lionel
Tiger, Charles Darwin Chair of Anthropology at Rutgers University and no friend
of organized religion, wrote a book called The
Decline of Males. In it he documents empirical links between contraception
and the breakdown of families, female impoverishment, and single motherhood.
His research has also led him to make the claim, “Contraception causes
abortion.” Even though Paul VI did not explicitly link the two in a causal
relationship it is clear that contraception leads to sexual promiscuity and
that abortion becomes the backup plan when birth control fails.

Loss of Respect for Women

In
the words of Paul VI, “It is also to be feared that the man, growing used to
the employment of anti-conceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the
woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may
come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment,
and no longer as his respected and beloved companion.”

For
all those who accuse the Church of waging a war against women Paul VI
demonstrates that sexual liberties actually lead to the abuse and
objectification of women. Although he could not have possibly foreseen the
explosion of pornography as the result of the internet, the pope did warn
against its spread through modern media. In truth, without easy access to
contraception and abortion the porn industry could not possibly exist in its
current form.

The
recent political debate over abortion restrictions in Texas afforded the world
an uncensored glimpse into the heart sexual revolution. Beyond the offensive
signs and slogans, apart from the mocking cheers of “Hail Satan!” the world was
introduced to the Bro-Choice movement. What is Bro-Choice? In their own words, “A
bro-choice is where I am pro-choice because I am a man and if women don’t have
access to abortion on demand then I won’t get laid as often.” There’s probably
no better spokesman for the hook-up culture of today’s youth and young adults. So
much for chivalry and respect for women.

Government Coercion

Humanae Vitae was published the same year as Paul
Erlich’s The Population Bomb. Paul VI
even cites concern about the earth’s growing population as one of the reasons
for examining the question of birth control. The pope recognized that if
contraception along with abortion and sterilization became acceptable means for
married couples to regulate births then governments would be emboldened to use
them as well.

The
most obvious example of this prediction coming true is China’s notorious one child
policy. Beginning in the mid-1970’s China encouraged its citizens to limit
their families to only two children. When this suggestive approach failed to
significantly impact birth rates the communist government instituted a
mandatory one child per family rule. This policy relies on the effectiveness of
widespread contraception along with abortion and sterilization—both methods
often applied through force.

Some
population alarmists in the West put suggested legitimate debate over the ethics
of introducing contraception to the water supply to control population growth.
In an ironic twist, concern is rising as hormones from oral contraceptives (making
their way through the sewer system) are building up in water supplies to the
point of causing sexual mutations in fish. Even though it may not yet be affecting
people it’s proving
expense to deal with.

Government
intrusion into family planning is currently a source of great controversy over
the implementation of Obamacare in the US. Here we see the federal government
coming into conflict with religious liberty by attempting to force individuals,
businesses and even some religious ministries to pay for and provide free
access to contraception, including the abortifacient morning after pill.

Illicit Domain over Our
Bodies

Paul
VI’s final concern was that “the mission of generating life” would be exposed “to
the arbitrary will of men,” and that this would lead to crossing over lines
relating to the use of technology over our bodies that violate the “integrity
of the human organism”.

Ten
years to the day after the proclamation of Humanae
Vitae, on July 25, 1978, Lousie Joy Brown was born in Oldham, England. She
was the first “test tube baby” to be born using in vitro fertilization (IVF).
We had moved on from a new form of artificial contraception to a new form of artificial
conception—both deemed illicit for separating the procreative from the unitive
aspects of the conjugal act. With the advent of IVF new ethical dilemmas arise
in protecting the dignity of the human person and the dignity of the marriage
act.

The
process of IVF itself contains morally offensive acts by creating multiple
human embryos. Typically multiple embryos are implanted and often some are
selectively aborted intentionally or merely cannot survive a crowded womb on
their own. Other embryos are kept in a state of suspended animation,
cryogenically frozen either temporarily or permanently. Embryonic research,
which necessarily results in the killing of embryos, is only possible due to
IVF. Recently the US Department of Health has given a nod of approval to three-person
IVF. In this procedure a donor egg has its nucleus removed and replaced with
the mitochondria of another woman and then combined with sperm for
fertilization. This embryo can then be placed in a surrogate mother and upon
birth be adopted by another couple. Suddenly Johnny has SIX adults involved in
his birth in some parental form or another.

The
artificial conception industry has given rise to sperm banks. These also carry
their own ethical challenges. In 2001, the New
York Times featured a story about one sperm donor who is said to have
fathered 150 children. The Huffington
Post began an April 2012 story with the follow line, “Ed Houben was a
virgin until the age of 34. Now he's the biological father of 82 children.” Most
children are never told their father was a donor and most donations are
restricted to a small geographical area. Now just imagine Johnny (with his 6
parents) meets Suzy twenty years from now, they fall in love and get married
without know that they are actually half-siblings.

To
return to Paul VI, there is a reason there are “limits which no man, whether a
private individual or one invested with authority, may licitly pass.”

Two
More Paul VI Didn’t See Coming

I’d
like to finish this post by pointing out to other consequences that Paul VI did
not predict: cafeteria Catholicism and gay marriage.

As
I mentioned previously, Humanae Vitae
was the Lexington moment for open rebellion against the Church from within. In
their effort to undermine Paul VI’s authority progressive theologians opened
the Pandora ’s Box of unformed conscience. The basic message sent forth was
that each individual could freely decide for his or herself which teachings to
accept and follow and which to reject or ignore. While this attitude had been
simmering at the academic level for some time, it was only in the wake of Humanae Vitae that the average lay
person was swept up in this current. So now we have untold numbers of the
baptized who have been told and believe that they can be “good” Catholics while
agreeing to disagree with the Church on issues like contraception, premarital
sex, abortion, and homosexual behavior. This dissent did not end with only
morality, but now many Catholics also feel free to ignore the Church on
doctrinal issues such as the Real Presence or purgatory and discipline such as
mass attendance or fasting.

As
for contraception’s connection to gay marriage, allow me to quote from Mary
Eberstadt:

“By giving benediction in 1930 to its married
heterosexual members purposely seeking sterile sex, the Anglican church lost,
bit by bit, any authority to tell its other members—married or unmarried,
heterosexual or homosexual—not to do the same. To put the point another way,
once heterosexuals starting claiming the rights to act as homosexuals, it would
not be long before homosexuals started claiming the rights of heterosexuals…Thus
in a bizarre but real sense did Lambeth's attempt to show compassion to married
heterosexuals inadvertently give rise to the modern gay rights movement."

When
sex becomes solely focused on recreation to the exclusion of procreation it
becomes removed from the context of marriage and therefore marriage loses its
intrinsic nature as a life-long committed relationship oriented towards raising
children.

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about me

I'm Tom Ponchak. I received a degree in theology from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. After graduation I worked as a parish youth minister in Maryland and a high school religion teacher in Michigan.
In 1997, my wife and I left the Catholic Church and joined the Association of Vineyard Churches, a non-denominational, evangelical faith community. I was the founding pastor of Matthew's House Vineyard in central Florida.
After ten years away from Catholicism, and longing for the Eucharist, I returned to the Church in 2006. I am currently the Director of Adult Faith Formation at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel parish in Indiana. I am also a member of the Domestic expression of the Brothers and Sisters of Charity.